Better Buildings

Modular units

Anyone who has worked in a temporary site office or a mobile classroom knows that they can be very cold in the winter and far too hot in summer.

Construction sites usually rely on diesel generators to supply electricity to offices and welfare units, so electric heaters and air conditioners are expensive to run and result in very high carbon emissions. We are currently developing a passive solar heating solution to reduce energy consumption in 24/7 drying rooms by 13% which will reduce diesel consumption to save £2,000 per year and reduce emissions by around 3,400 kgCO2e/year.

Schools often install “temporary” modular classrooms when they need extra space. These buildings can be very expensive to heat, yet staff and pupils still find themselves cold in the winter. On the flip side, overheating in summer can become unbearable, especially if windows need to be kept shut to reduce urban noise ingress and air pollution. Switchable Insulation provides free cooling by passively releasing trapped heat to reduce summertime overheating, and also uses the sun to provide free heating and reduce winter fuel bills.

Residential and Commercial

Modern buildings are required to be well-insulated to keep them warm in winter, cut carbon emissions, and reduce heating bills. However, the drive to increase insulation performance has had an unintended consequence – increased risk of overheating – which is set to get worsen due to climate change.

The problem has been recognised by the Building Regulations in England, with changes to Approved Document L (Conservation of Fuel and Power) and the introduction of the new Approved Document O (Overheating) for dwellings, together with CIBSE TM52 and TM59 guidance from Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers.

Switchable Insulation panels provide free cooling to passively reject trapped heat and significantly reduce the risk of overheating, without the need for expensive and noisy air conditioning. This minimises upfront capital costs for developers whilst also reducing electricity bills for building owners and tenants.

Energy Retrofits

Around 80% of the buildings we have today will exist in 2050, so it is essential that we retrofit them for energy efficiency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thermal comfort to adapt to the changing climate.

In a report to Parliament on 30 March 2023, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) warned that “there remains a lack of policy to address overheating in existing homes and buildings and a lack of understanding of the scale of efforts needed to mitigate the risk today”. It also highlighted a danger that inappropriate retrofit programmes could inadvertently worsen the risk of overheating and poor indoor air quality. The government should ensure that strategies “take a holistic approach” to improve performance throughout the whole year.

Solutions to prevent overheating in retrofits mainly focus on solar shading and increased natural ventilation, but the latter can be very problematic in urban areas suffering from high levels of environmental noise and air pollution

Switchable Insulation aims to be part of a holistic retrofit solution, enabling retrofitted facades to function as passive heat rejectors in summer (reducing reliance on opening windows in noisy and polluted urban environments) and controllable solar heaters in winter. Switchable Insulation panels also bringing added benefits such as protection against damp caused by driving rain on exposed facades, which can be a major problem when installing conventional external wall insulation systems.

Retail and Warehousing

High bay portal frame buildings such as warehouses and large retail units tend to be difficult and expensive to heat and cool due to the large exposed surfaces of roof and facade. Temperature stratification can be very significant in these buildings, with rising hot air accumulating at high level near the underside of the roof. Indoor temperatures can become very high in summer causing dangerous conditions for workers and damage to stored goods (particularly on uppermost shelves of tall racks).

Solar energy incident on south facing facades could provide up to 90% of the heating energy requirements in these buildings on sunny days in winter, but most of this energy resource is usually wasted due to the lack of windows and the walls being insulated. Conversely, in summer, insulated walls and roofs trap unwanted heat and exacerbate overheating.  

Switchable Insulation are developing a range of products to replace or enhance conventional insulated metal sandwich panels so that the walls and roofs of warehouses and large retail units can become passive heat rejectors and / or controllable solar heaters which regulate indoor temperatures and significantly reduce energy bills.

International Sustainability

Switchable Insulation is committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals which are embodied throughout the requirements of international Sustainable Building Certification schemes such as BREEAM, LEED, WELL, EDGE, VERDE, and DGNB to name a few. Switchable Insulation represent a significant opportunity in the drive towards resilient low-carbon buildings and can help tackle common “performance gaps” associated with attempts at Net Zero Energy Buildings.

We aim to address the large and growing global market for green, energy efficient, sustainable commercial and institutional buildings such as hotels/student/apartments, schools/colleges/hospitals, theatres/halls/courts, museum/galleries, retail/leisure, and warehousing/industrial.

Our current focus is on solutions to support low-carbon construction in the UK and Ireland, but we foresee application in a wide variety of building types and in countries with a broad range of climate conditions and extremes.  As can be seen from the map, Switchable Insulation has broad applicability across temperate, arid, and mediterranean climates.